Read Matt 19:1–15
Mat 19:3-9 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (4) He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, (5) and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (6) So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (7) They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” (8) He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (9) And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
I oftentimes hear people say Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Well here in this case Jesus most definitely confirms what marriage is. It is a husband and a wife, a male and a female in a lifelong union of their flesh. Jesus affirms what was written in Genesis with our first parent as God brings the woman he made from the flesh and bones of the man-she is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. The two became one flesh. Jesus tells us marriage is this oneness of the man and woman. When a couple gets married, God has joined them together. Divorce is not something God wants. God hates divorce. Indeed few people like divorce except perhaps that person who decides the grass is greener on the other side. But it isn’t painless for them either.
Why is that? Why does God care about marriage and divorce? Paul in his letter to the Ephesians gives us some insight as he affirms what Moses wrote and Jesus affirms when he says, Eph 5:24-27 “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (25) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (26) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (27) so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” And Eph 5:29-32 “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, (30) because we are members of his body. (31) “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (32) This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Marriage is an icon of the relationship between Christ Jesus and the Church. Particularly in Christian marriages should this be seen but marriage is not just a Christian institution but one God has instituted for all people everywhere. It is the image of how Christ looks for the best interest of his bride the Church and sheds his blood that she might live. It is the image of how we are spiritually one Spirit with Jesus who forgives us and sees us as holy to him, spotless, without fault or blemish. Jesus cannot and will never leave us or forsake us. Such is what marriage should be among us.
Lord Jesus Christ, you have bound us to yourself as you sacrificed yourself for us. Grant us as husbands to sacrifice our interest for our wives and we as wives submit in trust to our husbands as we do unto you. Amen.